


43. halo or crown

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [106]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: On the throne the queen watches Sarah. Her halo-crown is askew over her eyes. It’s sucked all the color out of her, made her pale – her skin, her hair, all colorless and dead. Her eyes shine almost-gold in the light.
“Dinner,” she yells as Sarah walks in. She bangs the empty goblet she’s holding against the arm of her throne. It makes a hollow clang that does not echo. “I want wine.”
“Haven’t got it,” Sarah says steadily. Her hand is shaking on her sword, but only a little.





	

They say that the angels choose the queen – that they come down from their high heights and kiss someone’s chosen daughter on the forehead, so that everyone knows they’re marked as holy. They say the angels have never chosen wrong. To say otherwise is blasphemy.

Sarah blasphemes the entire journey through the castle. Mostly this is through thoughts, and mostly these thoughts are interspersed with panicked bursts of _shit shit shit shit shit_. The castle is a mess. She heard that back when the last queen ruled the castle was beautiful – stained glass where the light shone in, windchimes hung up to catch the breeze, light and music. Even when this queen ruled – at the beginning, it was supposed to be beautiful. Children running in the halls. Chocolate fountains. Lovely, lovely.

But Sarah is here _now,_ when all the fountains have dried to sludge that looks less like chocolate and more like something else. She sees the slither of rat-tails and the horrible scurry of cockroaches over the remnants. The stained glass windows are all shattered and the light does not so much shine through as drip, dull and greyish, into the hallways. Pigeons are roosting in all the ceiling timbers. Everything is bird shit and rat shit and worse.

Here is what is worse: the place is silent.

Sarah has her sword out, but there is no one to attack. Every now and then she passes a body in the corner – but the bodies don’t move, at least not with human movement. The world smells like rot and shit and chocolate and Sarah clings to her sword like a child’s blanket and heads to the throne room.

The door is hanging off its hinges – it would have been awe-inspiring if it were cleaned and righted. It is made of the sort of wood that should shine with beeswax; it’s three times Sarah’s size. As it is it just looks sad, and she barely spares it a glance as she walks through and into the throne room.

The place is covered with old bones, chicken and pork and otherwise, and there are piles of fallen draperies built into almost-nests. It’s like an animal’s den, but: there are no animals here. The room is dead silent.

On the throne the queen watches Sarah. Her halo-crown is askew over her eyes. It’s sucked all the color out of her, made her pale – her skin, her hair, all colorless and dead. Her eyes shine almost-gold in the light.

“Dinner,” she yells as Sarah walks in. She bangs the empty goblet she’s holding against the arm of her throne. It makes a hollow _clang_ that does not echo. “I want _wine_.”

“Haven’t got it,” Sarah says steadily. Her hand is shaking on her sword, but only a little.

The queen lets out a high banshee-groan, throws herself sideways over her throne. Her head dangles at a broke-neck angle from one arm, her feet from the other. She drops the goblet on the floor from one lazy hand. “Wine,” she says again. “Everything is _loud_. Make it go away. I hate it.”

Sarah is here, in fact, to make it go away. But maybe not in the way the queen wants.

“No one’s gonna bring you wine,” she says as she steps closer. “They’re all dead and gone, _your majesty_. You scared ‘em all away. Don’t remember?”

The queen’s eyes flutter closed. “They burned my brains out with sunlight,” she croons to herself, “and now I am nothing else. Only the light.” Her eyes open again, dazzling and mad. She turns her head to look at Sarah. “I didn’t want this. Ruling. All these laws and sheep and cattle. I wanted the sweets and the little babies who laughed when I kissed their foreheads. That’s it.”

“Then you should have done that,” Sarah says, voice tight with anger, “instead of _murdering them_.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” the queen murmurs, holding up one hand and looking with fascination at her knuckles. “They want all sorts of things. Sacrifice. Not cake. They never want cake. They let me have cake, for a little while, but then they said _Helena, you have to pay for it_ and I did.”

“The angels,” Sarah says.

The queen – Helena – makes a sort of agreeing sound.

“That’s bullshit,” Sarah says, relieved. “The angels don’t _talk_ to you. They just choose you, and you’re supposed to know what you’re bloody doing.”

“They chose me,” says Helena, “and they liked me, so they did not go away. I was special. I was chosen. They did not know, that they were not supposed to stay this close. Nobody told them.” Her head rolls on her neck, and she looks at Sarah. “I can hear them whispering. Do you want to know what they’re saying?”

“No,” Sarah says. Helena considers this, and says: “Yes you do.

“They want me to kill you,” she says. “I could! It would be easy. I wouldn’t have to use my hands. They say you are just human, that you are nothing, that you were born in a gutter and I am holy and I could drink your blood and I would deserve it. But can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure,” Sarah says. She’s so close. Less than a foot away. She can see the pulse beating in the waxy skin of Helena’s throat. Helena smells like incense and metal, so heavy it lingers in the inside of Sarah’s nose.

“I want to die,” Helena whispers, and she closes her eyes and doesn’t say anything more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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